DNA test connects half-sisters, spawns med-mal payout fight

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In a lawsuit filed in the wake of an ancestry service’s DNA test, a Lexington woman claims she’s entitled to a share of a settlement for the wrongful death of the father she never met.

On Feb. 8, Carmen Thomas sued Salem residents Kristin Eckhardt, Kali Brown and Abigail Brown in Essex Superior Court. Eckhardt is the personal representative of the estate of Joseph Brown Jr., who died in January 2018. Kali and Abigail are the daughters of Eckhardt and Brown, who according to the plaintiff were not married.

The suit, which includes claims for unjust enrichment, interference with inheritance, and conversion, stems from a multi-million-dollar award in Essex Superior Court last April on claims brought by the estate against two doctors whose alleged negligence was the cause of Brown’s death.

Per the jury’s verdict, Kali and Abigail were each awarded $9.5 million. The estate received $1 million for Brown’s pain and suffering. The plaintiff alleges that, with interest, the verdict placed Eckhardt and her two daughters in line to receive a $28 million judgment.

However, according to Thomas’ complaint, the parties within the next couple of weeks  agreed to a settlement of the case for an undisclosed sum.

The plaintiff was born in Boston in July 1997; her mother was unmarried at the time. According to the plaintiff, when she was growing up, her mother identified her father simply as “Joe Brown,” a man with “brown” hair. With so little information about her father, the plaintiff claims that she was unable to locate Brown, despite trying for years.

The plaintiff alleges that, in February 2023, she provided a sample of her DNA for genetic testing to the ancestry service 23andMe. The following month, the plaintiff allegedly received a report from 23andMe identifying Kali as her half-sister. The plaintiff reached out to Kali and the two began communicating with each other via text and social media. At that time, the plaintiff learned of her father’s death. Abigail and Eckhardt would sometimes join in the online conversations.

According to the plaintiff, she first met Kali and Abigail face-to-face on March 18, 2023. For a number of weeks afterwards, the plaintiff, Kali and Abigail continued to see each other and exchange phone calls and text messages, enjoying a newfound relationship of “excitement and joy.”

But all that changed on April 7, when the plaintiff says she received a text from Kali indicating she needed time for herself. From that point on, the plaintiff claims she hasn’t heard from her stepsisters.

According to the plaintiff, she first learned of the medical malpractice action brought by the estate while doing an internet search to confirm the date of her father’s death. She later learned of the $28 million award, also while doing an online search.

The plaintiff alleges that at no time during the course of their visits and communications did the defendants inform her of the case.

The lawsuit contends that the plaintiff — as one of Brown’s children — is entitled to a share of the damages under the Wrongful Death Statute, G.L.c. 229, §1, and that Eckhardt breached her fiduciary duty as personal representative of the estate by failing to inform trial counsel that the plaintiff is Brown’s daughter.

Superior Court Judge Kristen R. Buxton on Feb. 20 conducted a hearing on the plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction and an accounting.

Beverly attorney Keith L. Sachs of DDSK Law represents the plaintiff. He did not respond to a request for comment.

The defendants’ attorney, Joseph D. Lipchitz of Saul Ewing in Boston, declined to comment on the matter.

But in the defendants’ brief in opposition to the plaintiff’s motion for injunctive relief, Lipchitz argues that the plaintiff could not demonstrate a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of her claims. In particular, Lipchitz pointed to G.L.c. 190B, §3-803’s general requirement that any person claiming money from an estate must bring their claim within one year of the decedent’s death.

“Here, Plaintiff  never brought any claim in the public probate proceeding arising from Mr. Brown’s death,” Lipchitz writes.

He further argues that the plaintiff could not show a likelihood of success on the merits because she failed to present admissible evidence of paternity.

[Editor’s note: On Feb. 20, Judge Buxton granted in part the plaintiff’s motion for injunctive relief. The judge allowed the requested relief insofar as it pertained to the plaintiff’s claimed entitlement to one-third of the amount awarded to the estate. However, finding no reasonable likelihood of success on the merits, Buxton denied the plaintiff’s motion with respect to her claim for loss-of-consortium damages.]

E. Steven Coren, a personal injury and probate litigator at Kerstein, Coren & Lichtenstein in Wellesley, thinks the plaintiff stands a good chance of satisfying the requirement that she is the legal “child” or issue of the decedent for purposes of Section 1 of the Wrongful Death Statute.

“I think she would qualify as a child because it has been held in the interpretation of wills that a child born out of wedlock who has either acknowledged or proved paternity is a child,” Coren says.

But Coren says the plaintiff may face challenges satisfying a limitation on damages under G.L.c. 229, §2, given her lack of any relationship with her father.

“She has to prove that she lost the ‘reasonably expected net income, services, protection, care, assistance, society, companionship, comfort, guidance, counsel, and advice of the decedent,’” Coren says.

On that point, Coren notes that in a 1983 case, Guy v. Johnson, the Appeals Court affirmed a wrongful death distribution in the amount of just $103.41 to a father who had abandoned any connection to his son before the son’s death. According to the court in Guy, under that circumstance the son had no value to the father “in the statutory sense.”

“It’s going to be an uphill struggle for [plaintiff Carmen Thomas] to prove any loss and, therefore, any damages,” Coren says.